Beam failure recovery for uplink

ABSTRACT

Various embodiments herein provide techniques for beam failure recovery in uplink. A user equipment (UE) may be configured with one or more thresholds, such as one or more power-related thresholds and/or one or more duty cycle thresholds. The UE may proactively detect a beam failure event based on the one or more thresholds. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/911,028, which was filed Oct. 4, 2019; the disclosureof which is hereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD

Embodiments relate generally to the technical field of wirelesscommunications.

BACKGROUND

3GPP Release (Rel)-15 beam reporting framework for frequency range 2(FR2) is maximum permissible exposure (MPE)-unaware, the optimal beamreport doesn't differentiate downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) transmissionlinks and there is no mechanism (except explicit sounding referencesignal (SRS) transmission) to indicate transmission (Tx) powerconstraint existing at the user equipment (UE) side for UL transmissiondue to the FR2 UE radio frequency (RF) exposure compliance reasons. Asthe result implementation based approaches to address the WE issue arebeing discussed in 3GPP RAN4. Those approaches rely on UE autonomous Txpower back-off and duty cycle reduction in UL to comply with regulationrequirement. This, however, is not an efficient way to handle theproblem because the considered implementation based solution onlyensures the compliance of the UL transmission to regulation requirementwithout solving the key issue of poor, WE-unaware beam selection by thenext generation NodeB (gNB) in FR2. Moreover, unpredictable (fromnetwork (NW) perspective) Tx power or duty cycle constraint could makeoverall scheduling procedure for gNB problematic. As the result, ULperformance of NR in FR2 could be significantly penalized even when thepower back off or duty cycle restriction are not significant.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments will be readily understood by the following detaileddescription in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To facilitatethis description, like reference numerals designate like structuralelements. Embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not by wayof limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 illustrates the need for beam selection enhancement to avoid amaximum permissible exposure (MPE) issue, in accordance with variousembodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates an uplink beam failure recovery (BFR) procedure, inaccordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 3 illustrates a process of a user equipment (UE) in accordance withvarious embodiments.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example architecture of a system of a network, inaccordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment in accordancewith various embodiments.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a computer platform in accordance withvarious embodiments.

FIG. 7 illustrates example components of baseband circuitry and radiofront end modules in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to someexample embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readableor computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readablestorage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings.The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identifythe same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposesof explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth suchas particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects ofvarious embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled inthe art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the variousaspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examplesthat depart from these specific details. In certain instances,descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted soas not to obscure the description of the various embodiments withunnecessary detail. For the purposes of the present document, the phrase“A or B” means (A), (B), or (A and B).

Rel-15 beam reporting framework for frequency range 2 (FR2) is maximumpermissible exposure (MPE)-unaware, the optimal beam report doesn'tdifferentiate downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) transmission links and thereis no mechanism (except explicit sounding reference signal (SRS)transmission) to indicate transmission (Tx) power constraint existing atthe user equipment (UE) side for UL transmission due to the FR2 UE radiofrequency (RF) exposure compliance reasons. As the result implementationbased approaches to address the MPE issue are being discussed in 3GPPRAN4. Those approaches rely on UE autonomous Tx power back-off and dutycycle reduction in UL to comply with regulation requirement. This,however, is not an efficient way to handle the problem because theconsidered implementation based solution only ensures the compliance ofthe UL transmission to regulation requirement without solving the keyissue of poor, MPE-unaware beam selection by the next generation NodeB(gNB) in FR2. Moreover, unpredictable (from network (NW) perspective) Txpower or duty cycle constraint could make overall scheduling procedurefor gNB problematic. As the result, UL performance of NR in FR2 could besignificantly penalized even when the power back off or duty cyclerestriction are not significant.

The alternative approach to cope with MPE problem relies on avoidance ofthe WE issue by using more advanced beam management and selectiontechniques by gNB, which avoid or minimize selection of MPE-limited(with large power management maximum power reduction (P-MPR)) beams forUL transmission (see FIG. 1).

In particular, 3GPP RANI as part of Rel-16 multiple input, multipleoutput (MIMO) Work Item (WI) has discussed beam management enhancementssupporting separate beam reporting optimizing DL and UL transmissionlinks. In this case, beam report from UE targeting UL transmission linkcould consider MPE constraints and, therefore, could avoid reportingproblematic candidate UL beams to gNB. Enhanced power headroom report(PHR) has been also proposed as part of discussion in RANI to improvegNB awareness regarding additional Tx power constraints existing at theUE side for UL transmission.

Embodiments are disclosed herein that may avoid radio link failures andconnection releases due to P-MPRs through UE-triggered beam failurerecovery (BFR) procedure for UL. For example, if the large P-MPR or dutycycle constraint is detected for the active UL beam, uplink BFRprocedure dynamically indicates to gNB the alternative communicationbeam (with lower P-MPR) for UL transmission.

The provided information can be used by gNB to support more efficient ULtransmission from the UE complaint with emission safety limits.

According to present disclosure, beam failure recovery procedure may bedefined in UL. In this case, UE may be configured with some powerrelated or duty cycle related thresholds may be used for proactivedetection of beam failure event for UL in case of user proximitydetection. FIG. 2 illustrates an example BFR procedure for uplink, inaccordance with various embodiments.

For example, the expected uplink SNR, expected UL RSRP or expected BLERof PUCCH (taking into the actual uplink transmit power) can be used fortriggering of beam failure event for the uplink direction. Upon beamfailure detection, UE should report list of candidate beams, using ID ofthe sounding reference signal (SRS) or ID of DL reference signals (e.g.channel state information (CSI)-reference signal (RS) and/orsynchronization signal block (SSB)) that may be used for uplinkbeamforming. The ID of the reference signal for uplink beamforming maybe reported along with the corresponding metric corresponding to theselected beam. For example, P-MPR, expected UL signal-to-noise ratio(SNR), expected UL received signal received power (RSRP), etc., may bereported by the UE together with ID of the reference signal.

In another example, the reporting and monitoring of beam failureresponse from gNB can follow conventional beam failure recoveryprocedures currently defined for downlink direction. In this case, thealternative beam for uplink transmission may be indicated by usingphysical random access channel (PRACH) and/or medium access control(MAC) control element (CE).

In another example of the embodiment, beam failure detection andrecovery procedure can be carried out jointly or independently for DLand UL. For joint beam failure detection and recovery procedure, UEshould provide list of candidate beams (in the form of ID of the beammanagement reference signals such as SSB and/or CSI-RS) that may be usedto assist beamforming for both DL and UL assuming beam correspondence.For example, upon indication of the candidate beam (e.g. based on ULcriteria only), UE should monitor PDCCH corresponding to the indicatednew candidate beam. For independent beam failure detection and recoveryprocedure, the beam failure triggering and reporting may be performed bythe UE separately for DL and UL directions. In particular, uplink beamfailure recovery response in response to beam failure event for theuplink direction may be provided to the UE without changing currentconfiguration of the downlink beam for physical downlink control channel(PDCCH) reception. In this approach, uplink beam is reconfigured for theUE using standard procedures based on higher layer signalling.

In another embodiment, the detection of beam failure event isunspecified and left up to UE implementation.

In another embodiment, the radio link monitoring (RLM) procedure may beextended to include evaluation of the uplink beams with respect topotential beam failure in case of user proximity detection. For example,out-of-sync may be declared at the UE when the expected link quality ofa physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) (e.g. block error rate (BLER)of PUCCH, UL RSRP) becomes below or above an associated threshold ifuser safety is considered in the transmit power determination. Radiolink failure (RLF) event and cell/beam re-selection procedures may betriggered at the UE using standard procedures.

In another embodiment beam indication for UL may be provided by the UEby using sequencing request (SR).

In embodiments, the UL beam may be explicitly indicated to the servinggNB by using ID of the reference signal (e.g. SSB, CSI-RS, SRS) orimplicitly through corresponding PRACH resource (e.g., sequence or PRACHoccasion). When beam indication is explicitly indicated, MAC CE orPUCCH/PUSCH may be used, for example.

Systems and Implementations

FIG. 4 illustrates an example architecture of a system 400 of a network,in accordance with various embodiments. The following description isprovided for an example system 400 that operates in conjunction with theLTE system standards and 5G or NR system standards as provided by 3GPPtechnical specifications. However, the example embodiments are notlimited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to othernetworks that benefit from the principles described herein, such asfuture 3GPP systems (e.g., Sixth Generation (6G)) systems, IEEE 802.16protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), or the like.

As shown by FIG. 4, the system 400 includes UE 401 a and UE 401 b(collectively referred to as “UEs 401” or “UE 401”). In this example,UEs 401 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreenmobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks),but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such asconsumer electronics devices, cellular phones, smartphones, featurephones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personal digitalassistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handsets, desktop computers, laptopcomputers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-car entertainment (ICE)devices, an Instrument Cluster (IC), head-up display (HUD) devices,onboard diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment (DME), mobiledata terminals (MDTs), Electronic Engine Management System (EEMS),electronic/engine control units (ECUs), electronic/engine controlmodules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules,engine management systems (EMS), networked or “smart” appliances, MTCdevices, M2M, IoT devices, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, any of the UEs 401 may be IoT UEs, which maycomprise a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applicationsutilizing short-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologiessuch as M2M or MTC for exchanging data with an MTC server or device viaa PLMN, ProSe or D2D communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks.The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange ofdata. An IoT network describes interconnecting IoT UEs, which mayinclude uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within theInternet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs mayexecute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, statusupdates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network.

The UEs 401 may be configured to connect, for example, communicativelycouple, with an or RAN 410. In embodiments, the RAN 410 may be an NG RANor a 5G RAN, an E-UTRAN, or a legacy RAN, such as a UTRAN or GERAN. Asused herein, the term “NG RAN” or the like may refer to a RAN 410 thatoperates in an NR or 5G system 400, and the term “E-UTRAN” or the likemay refer to a RAN 410 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 400. The UEs401 utilize connections (or channels) 403 and 404, respectively, each ofwhich comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussedin further detail below).

In this example, the connections 403 and 404 are illustrated as an airinterface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent withcellular communications protocols, such as a GSM protocol, a CDMAnetwork protocol, a PTT protocol, a POC protocol, a UMTS protocol, a3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G protocol, a NR protocol, and/or any of the othercommunications protocols discussed herein. In embodiments, the UEs 401may directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 405. TheProSe interface 405 may alternatively be referred to as a SL interface405 and may comprise one or more logical channels, including but notlimited to a PSCCH, a PSSCH, a PSDCH, and a PSBCH.

The UE 401 b is shown to be configured to access an AP 406 (alsoreferred to as “WLAN node 406,” “WLAN 406,” “WLAN Termination 406,” “WT406” or the like) via connection 407. The connection 407 can comprise alocal wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 406 would comprise a wireless fidelity(Wi-Fi®) router. In this example, the AP 406 is shown to be connected tothe Internet without connecting to the core network of the wirelesssystem (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, theUE 401 b, RAN 410, and AP 406 may be configured to utilize LWA operationand/or LWIP operation. The LWA operation may involve the UE 401 b inRRC_CONNECTED being configured by a RAN node 411 a-b to utilize radioresources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve the UE 401 b usingWLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 407) via IPsec protocol tunnelingto authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent over theconnection 407. IPsec tunneling may include encapsulating the entiretyof original IP packets and adding a new packet header, therebyprotecting the original header of the IP packets.

The RAN 410 can include one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 411 a and 411b (collectively referred to as “RAN nodes 411” or “RAN node 411”) thatenable the connections 403 and 404. As used herein, the terms “accessnode,” “access point,” or the like may describe equipment that providesthe radio baseband functions for data and/or voice connectivity betweena network and one or more users. These access nodes can be referred toas BS, gNBs, RAN nodes, eNBs, NodeBs, RSUs, TRxPs or TRPs, and so forth,and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) orsatellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., acell). As used herein, the term “NG RAN node” or the like may refer to aRAN node 411 that operates in an NR or 5G system 400 (for example, agNB), and the term “E-UTRAN node” or the like may refer to a RAN node411 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 400 (e.g., an eNB). Accordingto various embodiments, the RAN nodes 411 may be implemented as one ormore of a dedicated physical device such as a macrocell base station,and/or a low power (LP) base station for providing femtocells, picocellsor other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller usercapacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

In some embodiments, all or parts of the RAN nodes 411 may beimplemented as one or more software entities running on server computersas part of a virtual network, which may be referred to as a CRAN and/ora virtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). In these embodiments, the CRAN orvBBUP may implement a RAN function split, such as a PDCP split whereinRRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and other L2 protocolentities are operated by individual RAN nodes 411; a MAC/PHY splitwherein RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN/vBBUPand the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 411; or a “lowerPHY” split wherein RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC layers and upper portions of thePHY layer are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and lower portions of the PHYlayer are operated by individual RAN nodes 411. This virtualizedframework allows the freed-up processor cores of the RAN nodes 411 toperform other virtualized applications. In some implementations, anindividual RAN node 411 may represent individual gNB-DUs that areconnected to a gNB-CU via individual F1 interfaces (not shown by FIG.4). In these implementations, the gNB-DUs may include one or more remoteradio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g., FIG. 5), and the gNB-CU may be operatedby a server that is located in the RAN 410 (not shown) or by a serverpool in a similar manner as the CRAN/vBBUP. Additionally oralternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 411 may be next generationeNBs (ng-eNBs), which are RAN nodes that provide E-UTRA user plane andcontrol plane protocol terminations toward the UEs 401, and areconnected to a 5GC via an NG interface (discussed infra).

In V2X scenarios one or more of the RAN nodes 411 may be or act as RSUs.The term “Road Side Unit” or “RSU” may refer to any transportationinfrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may beimplemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (or relativelystationary) UE, where an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referredto as a “UE-type RSU,” an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may bereferred to as an “eNB-type RSU,” an RSU implemented in or by a gNB maybe referred to as a “gNB-type RSU,” and the like. In one example, an RSUis a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located ona roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs 401(vUEs 401). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry tostore intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well asapplications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicular andpedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9 GHz Direct ShortRange Communications (DSRC) band to provide very low latencycommunications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance,traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSUmay operate on the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned lowlatency communications, as well as other cellular communicationsservices. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fihotspot (2.4 GHz band) and/or provide connectivity to one or morecellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. Thecomputing device(s) and some or all of the radiofrequency circuitry ofthe RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoorinstallation, and may include a network interface controller to providea wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controllerand/or a backhaul network.

Any of the RAN nodes 411 can terminate the air interface protocol andcan be the first point of contact for the UEs 401. In some embodiments,any of the RAN nodes 411 can fulfill various logical functions for theRAN 410 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC)functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamicradio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobilitymanagement.

In embodiments, the UEs 401 can be configured to communicate using OFDMcommunication signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes 411over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance with variouscommunication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an OFDMAcommunication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a SC-FDMAcommunication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelinkcommunications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited inthis respect. The OFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonalsubcarriers.

In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlinktransmissions from any of the RAN nodes 411 to the UEs 401, while uplinktransmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be atime-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resourcegrid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Sucha time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDMsystems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Eachcolumn and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symboland one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource gridin the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. Thesmallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resourceelement. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, whichdescribe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements.Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in thefrequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resourcesthat currently can be allocated. There are several different physicaldownlink channels that are conveyed using such resource blocks.

According to various embodiments, the UEs 401 and the RAN nodes 411communicate data (for example, transmit and receive) data over alicensed medium (also referred to as the “licensed spectrum” and/or the“licensed band”) and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to asthe “unlicensed spectrum” and/or the “unlicensed band”). The licensedspectrum may include channels that operate in the frequency range ofapproximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz, whereas the unlicensedspectrum may include the 5 GHz band.

To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UEs 401 and the RAN nodes 411may operate using LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms. In theseimplementations, the UEs 401 and the RAN nodes 411 may perform one ormore known medium-sensing operations and/or carrier-sensing operationsin order to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensedspectrum is unavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmitting inthe unlicensed spectrum. The medium/carrier sensing operations may beperformed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

LBT is a mechanism whereby equipment (for example, UEs 401 RAN nodes411, etc.) senses a medium (for example, a channel or carrier frequency)and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specificchannel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensingoperation may include CCA, which utilizes at least ED to determine thepresence or absence of other signals on a channel in order to determineif a channel is occupied or clear. This LBT mechanism allowscellular/LAA networks to coexist with incumbent systems in theunlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. ED may include sensingRF energy across an intended transmission band for a period of time andcomparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

Typically, the incumbent systems in the 5 GHz band are WLANs based onIEEE 802.11 technologies. WLAN employs a contention-based channel accessmechanism, called CSMA/CA. Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobilestation (MS) such as UE 401, AP 406, or the like) intends to transmit,the WLAN node may first perform CCA before transmission. Additionally, abackoff mechanism is used to avoid collisions in situations where morethan one WLAN node senses the channel as idle and transmits at the sametime. The backoff mechanism may be a counter that is drawn randomlywithin the CWS, which is increased exponentially upon the occurrence ofcollision and reset to a minimum value when the transmission succeeds.The LBT mechanism designed for LAA is somewhat similar to the CSMA/CA ofWLAN. In some implementations, the LBT procedure for DL or ULtransmission bursts including PDSCH or PUSCH transmissions,respectively, may have an LAA contention window that is variable inlength between X and Y ECCA slots, where X and Y are minimum and maximumvalues for the CWSs for LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for an LAAtransmission may be 9 microseconds (μs); however, the size of the CWSand a MCOT (for example, a transmission burst) may be based ongovernmental regulatory requirements.

The LAA mechanisms are built upon CA technologies of LTE-Advancedsystems. In CA, each aggregated carrier is referred to as a CC. A CC mayhave a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 20 MHz and a maximum of fiveCCs can be aggregated, and therefore, a maximum aggregated bandwidth is100 MHz. In FDD systems, the number of aggregated carriers can bedifferent for DL and UL, where the number of UL CCs is equal to or lowerthan the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, individual CCscan have a different bandwidth than other CCs. In TDD systems, thenumber of CCs as well as the bandwidths of each CC is usually the samefor DL and UL.

CA also comprises individual serving cells to provide individual CCs.The coverage of the serving cells may differ, for example, because CCson different frequency bands will experience different pathloss. Aprimary service cell or PCell may provide a PCC for both UL and DL, andmay handle RRC and NAS related activities. The other serving cells arereferred to as SCells, and each SCell may provide an individual SCC forboth UL and DL. The SCCs may be added and removed as required, whilechanging the PCC may require the UE 401 to undergo a handover. In LAA,eLAA, and feLAA, some or all of the SCells may operate in the unlicensedspectrum (referred to as “LAA SCells”), and the LAA SCells are assistedby a PCell operating in the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configuredwith more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive UL grants on theconfigured LAA SCells indicating different PUSCH starting positionswithin a same subframe.

The PDSCH carries user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs 401.The PDCCH carries information about the transport format and resourceallocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other things. It mayalso inform the UEs 401 about the transport format, resource allocation,and HARQ information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically,downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resourceblocks to the UE 401 b within a cell) may be performed at any of the RANnodes 411 based on channel quality information fed back from any of theUEs 401. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on thePDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of the UEs 401.

The PDCCH uses CCEs to convey the control information. Before beingmapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols may firstbe organized into quadruplets, which may then be permuted using asub-block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmittedusing one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to ninesets of four physical resource elements known as REGs. Four QuadraturePhase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCHcan be transmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of theDCI and the channel condition. There can be four or more different PDCCHformats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregationlevel, L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

Some embodiments may use concepts for resource allocation for controlchannel information that are an extension of the above-describedconcepts. For example, some embodiments may utilize an EPDCCH that usesPDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may betransmitted using one or more ECCEs. Similar to above, each ECCE maycorrespond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as anEREGs. An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some situations.

The RAN nodes 411 may be configured to communicate with one another viainterface 412. In embodiments where the system 400 is an LTE system(e.g., when CN 420 is an EPC), the interface 412 may be an X2 interface412. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 411(e.g., two or more eNBs and the like) that connect to EPC 420, and/orbetween two eNBs connecting to EPC 420. In some implementations, the X2interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide flow controlmechanisms for user data packets transferred over the X2 interface, andmay be used to communicate information about the delivery of user databetween eNBs. For example, the X2-U may provide specific sequence numberinformation for user data transferred from a MeNB to an SeNB;information about successful in sequence delivery of PDCP PDUs to a UE401 from an SeNB for user data; information of PDCP PDUs that were notdelivered to a UE 401; information about a current minimum desiredbuffer size at the SeNB for transmitting to the UE user data; and thelike. The X2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functionality,including context transfers from source to target eNBs, user planetransport control, etc.; load management functionality; as well asinter-cell interference coordination functionality.

In embodiments where the system 400 is a 5G or NR system (e.g., when CN420 is an 5GC), the interface 412 may be an Xn interface 412. The Xninterface is defined between two or more RAN nodes 411 (e.g., two ormore gNBs and the like) that connect to 5GC 420, between a RAN node 411(e.g., a gNB) connecting to 5GC 420 and an eNB, and/or between two eNBsconnecting to 5GC 420. In some implementations, the Xn interface mayinclude an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C)interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user planePDUs and support/provide data forwarding and flow control functionality.The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functionality,functionality to manage the Xn-C interface; mobility support for UE 401in a connected mode (e.g., CM-CONNECTED) including functionality tomanage the UE mobility for connected mode between one or more RAN nodes411. The mobility support may include context transfer from an old(source) serving RAN node 411 to new (target) serving RAN node 411; andcontrol of user plane tunnels between old (source) serving RAN node 411to new (target) serving RAN node 411. A protocol stack of the Xn-U mayinclude a transport network layer built on Internet Protocol (IP)transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of a UDP and/or IP layer(s) tocarry user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include anapplication layer signaling protocol (referred to as Xn ApplicationProtocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer that is built on SCTP.The SCTP may be on top of an IP layer, and may provide the guaranteeddelivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer,point-to-point transmission is used to deliver the signaling PDUs. Inother implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and/or the Xn-C protocolstack may be same or similar to the user plane and/or control planeprotocol stack(s) shown and described herein.

The RAN 410 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network—inthis embodiment, core network (CN) 420. The CN 420 may comprise aplurality of network elements 422, which are configured to offer variousdata and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g.,users of UEs 401) who are connected to the CN 420 via the RAN 410. Thecomponents of the CN 420 may be implemented in one physical node orseparate physical nodes including components to read and executeinstructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g.,a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments,NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the above-describednetwork node functions via executable instructions stored in one or morecomputer-readable storage mediums (described in further detail below). Alogical instantiation of the CN 420 may be referred to as a networkslice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 420 may bereferred to as a network sub-slice. NFV architectures andinfrastructures may be used to virtualize one or more network functions,alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, onto physical resourcescomprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storagehardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems can be used toexecute virtual or reconfigurable implementations of one or more EPCcomponents/functions.

Generally, the application server 430 may be an element offeringapplications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g.,UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 430can also be configured to support one or more communication services(e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, socialnetworking services, etc.) for the UEs 401 via the EPC 420.

In embodiments, the CN 420 may be a 5GC (referred to as “5GC 420” or thelike), and the RAN 410 may be connected with the CN 420 via an NGinterface 413. In embodiments, the NG interface 413 may be split intotwo parts, an NG user plane (NG-U) interface 414, which carries trafficdata between the RAN nodes 411 and a UPF, and the S1 control plane(NG-C) interface 415, which is a signaling interface between the RANnodes 411 and AMFs.

In embodiments, the CN 420 may be a 5G CN (referred to as “5GC 420” orthe like), while in other embodiments, the CN 420 may be an EPC). WhereCN 420 is an EPC (referred to as “EPC 420” or the like), the RAN 410 maybe connected with the CN 420 via an S1 interface 413. In embodiments,the S1 interface 413 may be split into two parts, an S1 user plane(S1-U) interface 414, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes411 and the S-GW, and the S1-MME interface 415, which is a signalinginterface between the RAN nodes 411 and MMES.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment 500 inaccordance with various embodiments. The infrastructure equipment 500(or “system 500”) may be implemented as a base station, radio head, RANnode such as the RAN nodes 411 and/or AP 406 shown and describedpreviously, application server(s) 430, and/or any other element/devicediscussed herein. In other examples, the system 500 could be implementedin or by a UE.

The system 500 includes application circuitry 505, baseband circuitry510, one or more radio front end modules (RFEMs) 515, memory circuitry520, power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 525, power teecircuitry 530, network controller circuitry 535, network interfaceconnector 540, satellite positioning circuitry 545, and user interface550. In some embodiments, the device 500 may include additional elementssuch as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, orinput/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the componentsdescribed below may be included in more than one device. For example,said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device forCRAN, vBBU, or other like implementations.

Application circuitry 505 includes circuitry such as, but not limited toone or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one ormore of low drop-out voltage regulators (LDOs), interrupt controllers,serial interfaces such as SPI, I2C or universal programmable serialinterface module, real time clock (RTC), timer-counters includinginterval and watchdog timers, general purpose input/output (I/O or IO),memory card controllers such as Secure Digital (SD) MultiMediaCard (MMC)or similar, Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces, Mobile IndustryProcessor Interface (MIPI) interfaces and Joint Test Access Group (JTAG)test access ports. The processors (or cores) of the applicationcircuitry 505 may be coupled with or may include memory/storage elementsand may be configured to execute instructions stored in thememory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems torun on the system 500. In some implementations, the memory/storageelements may be on-chip memory circuitry, which may include any suitablevolatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM,Flash memory, solid-state memory, and/or any other type of memory devicetechnology, such as those discussed herein.

The processor(s) of application circuitry 505 may include, for example,one or more processor cores (CPUs), one or more application processors,one or more graphics processing units (GPUs), one or more reducedinstruction set computing (RISC) processors, one or more Acorn RISCMachine (ARM) processors, one or more complex instruction set computing(CISC) processors, one or more digital signal processors (DSP), one ormore FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or moremicroprocessors or controllers, or any suitable combination thereof. Insome embodiments, the application circuitry 505 may comprise, or may be,a special-purpose processor/controller to operate according to thevarious embodiments herein. As examples, the processor(s) of applicationcircuitry 505 may include one or more Intel Pentium®, Core®, or Xeon®processor(s); Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor(s),Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), or Epyc® processors; ARM-basedprocessor(s) licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd. such as the ARM Cortex-Afamily of processors and the ThunderX2® provided by Cavium™, Inc.; aMIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such as MIPS WarriorP-class processors; and/or the like. In some embodiments, the system 500may not utilize application circuitry 505, and instead may include aspecial-purpose processor/controller to process IP data received from anEPC or SGC, for example.

In some implementations, the application circuitry 505 may include oneor more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors,programmable processing devices, or the like. The one or more hardwareaccelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and/or deeplearning (DL) accelerators. As examples, the programmable processingdevices may be one or more a field-programmable devices (FPDs) such asfield-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and the like; programmable logicdevices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs(HCPLDs), and the like; ASICs such as structured ASICs and the like;programmable SoCs (PSoCs); and the like. In such implementations, thecircuitry of application circuitry 505 may comprise logic blocks orlogic fabric, and other interconnected resources that may be programmedto perform various functions, such as the procedures, methods,functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In suchembodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry 505 may includememory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flashmemory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM),anti-fuses, etc.)) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc.in look-up-tables (LUTs) and the like.

The baseband circuitry 510 may be implemented, for example, as asolder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, asingle packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or amulti-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Thevarious hardware electronic elements of baseband circuitry 510 arediscussed infra with regard to FIG. 7.

User interface circuitry 550 may include one or more user interfacesdesigned to enable user interaction with the system 500 or peripheralcomponent interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interactionwith the system 500. User interfaces may include, but are not limitedto, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), oneor more indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physicalkeyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touchscreen, speakers orother audio emitting devices, microphones, a printer, a scanner, aheadset, a display screen or display device, etc. Peripheral componentinterfaces may include, but are not limited to, a nonvolatile memoryport, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power supplyinterface, etc.

The radio front end modules (RFEMs) 515 may comprise a millimeter wave(mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-mmWave radio frequency integratedcircuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-mmWaveRFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs mayinclude connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see e.g.,antenna array 711 of FIG. 7 infra), and the RFEM may be connected tomultiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both mmWave andsub-mmWave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical RFEM515, which incorporates both mmWave antennas and sub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry 520 may include one or more of volatile memoryincluding dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and/or synchronous dynamicrandom access memory (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM) includinghigh-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flashmemory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistiverandom access memory (MRAM), etc., and may incorporate thethree-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® andMicron®. Memory circuitry 520 may be implemented as one or more ofsolder down packaged integrated circuits, socketed memory modules andplug-in memory cards.

The PMIC 525 may include voltage regulators, surge protectors, poweralarm detection circuitry, and one or more backup power sources such asa battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuitry may detectone or more of brown out (under-voltage) and surge (over-voltage)conditions. The power tee circuitry 530 may provide for electrical powerdrawn from a network cable to provide both power supply and dataconnectivity to the infrastructure equipment 500 using a single cable.

The network controller circuitry 535 may provide connectivity to anetwork using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet,Ethernet over GRE Tunnels, Ethernet over Multiprotocol Label Switching(MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. Network connectivity may beprovided to/from the infrastructure equipment 500 via network interfaceconnector 540 using a physical connection, which may be electrical(commonly referred to as a “copper interconnect”), optical, or wireless.The network controller circuitry 535 may include one or more dedicatedprocessors and/or FPGAs to communicate using one or more of theaforementioned protocols. In some implementations, the networkcontroller circuitry 535 may include multiple controllers to provideconnectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

The positioning circuitry 545 includes circuitry to receive and decodesignals transmitted/broadcasted by a positioning network of a globalnavigation satellite system (GNSS). Examples of navigation satelliteconstellations (or GNSS) include United States' Global PositioningSystem (GPS), Russia's Global Navigation System (GLONASS), the EuropeanUnion's Galileo system, China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, aregional navigation system or GNSS augmentation system (e.g., Navigationwith Indian Constellation (NAVIC), Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System(QZSS), France's Doppler Orbitography and Radio-positioning Integratedby Satellite (DORIS), etc.), or the like. The positioning circuitry 545comprises various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devicessuch as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like tofacilitate OTA communications) to communicate with components of apositioning network, such as navigation satellite constellation nodes.In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry 545 may include aMicro-Technology for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (Micro-PNT) ICthat uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking/estimationwithout GNSS assistance. The positioning circuitry 545 may also be partof, or interact with, the baseband circuitry 510 and/or RFEMs 515 tocommunicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network.The positioning circuitry 545 may also provide position data and/or timedata to the application circuitry 505, which may use the data tosynchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., RAN nodes 411,etc.), or the like.

The components shown by FIG. 5 may communicate with one another usinginterface circuitry, which may include any number of bus and/orinterconnect (IX) technologies such as industry standard architecture(ISA), extended ISA (EISA), peripheral component interconnect (PCI),peripheral component interconnect extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe),or any number of other technologies. The bus/IX may be a proprietarybus, for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus/IX systems maybe included, such as an I²C interface, an SPI interface, point to pointinterfaces, and a power bus, among others.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a platform 600 (or “device 600”) inaccordance with various embodiments. In embodiments, the computerplatform 600 may be suitable for use as UEs 401, application servers430, and/or any other element/device discussed herein. The platform 600may include any combinations of the components shown in the example. Thecomponents of platform 600 may be implemented as integrated circuits(ICs), portions thereof, discrete electronic devices, or other modules,logic, hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof adapted inthe computer platform 600, or as components otherwise incorporatedwithin a chassis of a larger system. The block diagram of FIG. 6 isintended to show a high level view of components of the computerplatform 600. However, some of the components shown may be omitted,additional components may be present, and different arrangement of thecomponents shown may occur in other implementations.

Application circuitry 605 includes circuitry such as, but not limited toone or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one ormore of LDOs, interrupt controllers, serial interfaces such as SPI, I2Cor universal programmable serial interface module, RTC, timer-countersincluding interval and watchdog timers, general purpose I/O, memory cardcontrollers such as SD MMC or similar, USB interfaces, MIPI interfaces,and JTAG test access ports. The processors (or cores) of the applicationcircuitry 605 may be coupled with or may include memory/storage elementsand may be configured to execute instructions stored in thememory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems torun on the system 600. In some implementations, the memory/storageelements may be on-chip memory circuitry, which may include any suitablevolatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM,Flash memory, solid-state memory, and/or any other type of memory devicetechnology, such as those discussed herein.

The processor(s) of application circuitry 505 may include, for example,one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one ormore GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, oneor more CISC processors, one or more DSP, one or more FPGAs, one or morePLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, amultithreaded processor, an ultra-low voltage processor, an embeddedprocessor, some other known processing element, or any suitablecombination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuitry 505may comprise, or may be, a special-purpose processor/controller tooperate according to the various embodiments herein.

As examples, the processor(s) of application circuitry 605 may includean Intel® Architecture Core™ based processor, such as a Quark™, anAtom™, an i3, an i5, an i7, or an MCU-class processor, or another suchprocessor available from Intel® Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif. Theprocessors of the application circuitry 605 may also be one or more ofAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor(s) or AcceleratedProcessing Units (APUs); A5-A9 processor(s) from Apple® Inc.,Snapdragon™ processor(s) from Qualcomm® Technologies, Inc., TexasInstruments, Inc.® Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP)™processor(s); a MIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such asMIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors;an ARM-based design licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARMCortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M family of processors; or the like. Insome implementations, the application circuitry 605 may be a part of asystem on a chip (SoC) in which the application circuitry 605 and othercomponents are formed into a single integrated circuit, or a singlepackage, such as the Edison™ or Galileo™ SoC boards from Intel®Corporation.

Additionally or alternatively, application circuitry 605 may includecircuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more a field-programmabledevices (FPDs) such as FPGAs and the like; programmable logic devices(PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), andthe like; ASICs such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable SoCs(PSoCs); and the like. In such embodiments, the circuitry of applicationcircuitry 605 may comprise logic blocks or logic fabric, and otherinterconnected resources that may be programmed to perform variousfunctions, such as the procedures, methods, functions, etc. of thevarious embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitryof application circuitry 605 may include memory cells (e.g., erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory(e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuses, etc.)) used tostore logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc. in look-up tables (LUTs)and the like.

The baseband circuitry 610 may be implemented, for example, as asolder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, asingle packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or amulti-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Thevarious hardware electronic elements of baseband circuitry 610 arediscussed infra with regard to FIG. 7.

The RFEMs 615 may comprise a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one ormore sub-mmWave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In someimplementations, the one or more sub-mmWave RFICs may be physicallyseparated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs may include connections to oneor more antennas or antenna arrays (see e.g., antenna array 711 of FIG.7 infra), and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. Inalternative implementations, both mmWave and sub-mmWave radio functionsmay be implemented in the same physical RFEM 615, which incorporatesboth mmWave antennas and sub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry 620 may include any number and type of memorydevices used to provide for a given amount of system memory. Asexamples, the memory circuitry 620 may include one or more of volatilememory including random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) and/orsynchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM) includinghigh-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flashmemory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistiverandom access memory (MRAM), etc. The memory circuitry 620 may bedeveloped in accordance with a Joint Electron Devices EngineeringCouncil (JEDEC) low power double data rate (LPDDR)-based design, such asLPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, or the like. Memory circuitry 620 may beimplemented as one or more of solder down packaged integrated circuits,single die package (SDP), dual die package (DDP) or quad die package(Q17P), socketed memory modules, dual inline memory modules (DIMMs)including microDIMMs or MiniDIMMs, and/or soldered onto a motherboardvia a ball grid array (BGA). In low power implementations, the memorycircuitry 620 may be on-die memory or registers associated with theapplication circuitry 605. To provide for persistent storage ofinformation such as data, applications, operating systems and so forth,memory circuitry 620 may include one or more mass storage devices, whichmay include, inter alia, a solid state disk drive (SSDD), hard diskdrive (HDD), a micro HDD, resistance change memories, phase changememories, holographic memories, or chemical memories, among others. Forexample, the computer platform 600 may incorporate the three-dimensional(3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® and Micron®.

Removable memory circuitry 623 may include devices, circuitry,enclosures/housings, ports or receptacles, etc. used to couple portabledata storage devices with the platform 600. These portable data storagedevices may be used for mass storage purposes, and may include, forexample, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards, microSDcards, xD picture cards, and the like), and USB flash drives, opticaldiscs, external HDDs, and the like.

The platform 600 may also include interface circuitry (not shown) thatis used to connect external devices with the platform 600. The externaldevices connected to the platform 600 via the interface circuitryinclude sensor circuitry 621 and electro-mechanical components (EMCs)622, as well as removable memory devices coupled to removable memorycircuitry 623.

The sensor circuitry 621 include devices, modules, or subsystems whosepurpose is to detect events or changes in its environment and send theinformation (sensor data) about the detected events to some other adevice, module, subsystem, etc. Examples of such sensors include, interalia, inertia measurement units (IMUS) comprising accelerometers,gyroscopes, and/or magnetometers; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)or nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) comprising 3-axisaccelerometers, 3-axis gyroscopes, and/or magnetometers; level sensors;flow sensors; temperature sensors (e.g., thermistors); pressure sensors;barometric pressure sensors; gravimeters; altimeters; image capturedevices (e.g., cameras or lensless apertures); light detection andranging (LiDAR) sensors; proximity sensors (e.g., infrared radiationdetector and the like), depth sensors, ambient light sensors, ultrasonictransceivers; microphones or other like audio capture devices; etc.

EMCs 622 include devices, modules, or subsystems whose purpose is toenable platform 600 to change its state, position, and/or orientation,or move or control a mechanism or (sub)system. Additionally, EMCs 622may be configured to generate and send messages/signalling to othercomponents of the platform 600 to indicate a current state of the EMCs622. Examples of the EMCs 622 include one or more power switches, relaysincluding electromechanical relays (EMRs) and/or solid state relays(SSRs), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), an audible soundgenerator, a visual warning device, motors (e.g., DC motors, steppermotors, etc.), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks,and/or other like electro-mechanical components. In embodiments,platform 600 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 622 based on oneor more captured events and/or instructions or control signals receivedfrom a service provider and/or various clients.

In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect theplatform 600 with positioning circuitry 645. The positioning circuitry645 includes circuitry to receive and decode signalstransmitted/broadcasted by a positioning network of a GNSS. Examples ofnavigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include United States'GPS, Russia's GLONASS, the European Union's Galileo system, China'sBeiDou Navigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSSaugmentation system (e.g., NAVIC), Japan's QZSS, France's DORIS, etc.),or the like. The positioning circuitry 645 comprises various hardwareelements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters,amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate OTAcommunications) to communicate with components of a positioning network,such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments,the positioning circuitry 645 may include a Micro-PNT IC that uses amaster timing clock to perform position tracking/estimation without GNSSassistance. The positioning circuitry 645 may also be part of, orinteract with, the baseband circuitry 510 and/or RFEMs 615 tocommunicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network.The positioning circuitry 645 may also provide position data and/or timedata to the application circuitry 605, which may use the data tosynchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radio basestations), for turn-by-turn navigation applications, or the like

In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect theplatform 600 with Near-Field Communication (NFC) circuitry 640. NFCcircuitry 640 is configured to provide contactless, short-rangecommunications based on radio frequency identification (RFID) standards,wherein magnetic field induction is used to enable communication betweenNFC circuitry 640 and NFC-enabled devices external to the platform 600(e.g., an “NFC touchpoint”). NFC circuitry 640 comprises an NFCcontroller coupled with an antenna element and a processor coupled withthe NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip/IC providing NFCfunctionalities to the NFC circuitry 640 by executing NFC controllerfirmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executed by theprocessor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmwaremay be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element toemit short-range RF signals. The RF signals may power a passive NFC tag(e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transmitstored data to the NFC circuitry 640, or initiate data transfer betweenthe NFC circuitry 640 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphoneor an NFC-enabled POS terminal) that is proximate to the platform 600.

The driver circuitry 646 may include software and hardware elements thatoperate to control particular devices that are embedded in the platform600, attached to the platform 600, or otherwise communicatively coupledwith the platform 600. The driver circuitry 646 may include individualdrivers allowing other components of the platform 600 to interact withor control various input/output (I/O) devices that may be presentwithin, or connected to, the platform 600. For example, driver circuitry646 may include a display driver to control and allow access to adisplay device, a touchscreen driver to control and allow access to atouchscreen interface of the platform 600, sensor drivers to obtainsensor readings of sensor circuitry 621 and control and allow access tosensor circuitry 621, EMC drivers to obtain actuator positions of theEMCs 622 and/or control and allow access to the EMCs 622, a cameradriver to control and allow access to an embedded image capture device,audio drivers to control and allow access to one or more audio devices.

The power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 625 (also referred toas “power management circuitry 625”) may manage power provided tovarious components of the platform 600. In particular, with respect tothe baseband circuitry 610, the PMIC 625 may control power-sourceselection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion.The PMIC 625 may often be included when the platform 600 is capable ofbeing powered by a battery 630, for example, when the device is includedin a UE 401.

In some embodiments, the PMIC 625 may control, or otherwise be part of,various power saving mechanisms of the platform 600. For example, if theplatform 600 is in an RRC_Connected state, where it is still connectedto the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it mayenter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a periodof inactivity. During this state, the platform 600 may power down forbrief intervals of time and thus save power. If there is no data trafficactivity for an extended period of time, then the platform 600 maytransition off to an RRC Idle state, where it disconnects from thenetwork and does not perform operations such as channel qualityfeedback, handover, etc. The platform 600 goes into a very low powerstate and it performs paging where again it periodically wakes up tolisten to the network and then powers down again. The platform 600 maynot receive data in this state; in order to receive data, it musttransition back to RRC_Connected state. An additional power saving modemay allow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longerthan a paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). Duringthis time, the device is totally unreachable to the network and maypower down completely. Any data sent during this time incurs a largedelay and it is assumed the delay is acceptable.

A battery 630 may power the platform 600, although in some examples theplatform 600 may be mounted deployed in a fixed location, and may have apower supply coupled to an electrical grid. The battery 630 may be alithium ion battery, a metal-air battery, such as a zinc-air battery, analuminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, and the like. In someimplementations, such as in V2X applications, the battery 630 may be atypical lead-acid automotive battery.

In some implementations, the battery 630 may be a “smart battery,” whichincludes or is coupled with a Battery Management System (BMS) or batterymonitoring integrated circuitry. The BMS may be included in the platform600 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 630. The BMS maybe used to monitor other parameters of the battery 630 to providefailure predictions, such as the state of health (SoH) and the state offunction (SoF) of the battery 630. The BMS may communicate theinformation of the battery 630 to the application circuitry 605 or othercomponents of the platform 600. The BMS may also include ananalog-to-digital (ADC) convertor that allows the application circuitry605 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 630 or the currentflow from the battery 630. The battery parameters may be used todetermine actions that the platform 600 may perform, such astransmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, and thelike.

A power block, or other power supply coupled to an electrical grid maybe coupled with the BMS to charge the battery 630. In some examples, thepower block XS30 may be replaced with a wireless power receiver toobtain the power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in thecomputer platform 600. In these examples, a wireless battery chargingcircuit may be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuitschosen may depend on the size of the battery 630, and thus, the currentrequired. The charging may be performed using the Airfuel standardpromulgated by the Airfuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standardpromulgated by the Wireless Power Consortium, or the Rezence chargingstandard promulgated by the Alliance for Wireless Power, among others.

User interface circuitry 650 includes various input/output (I/O) devicespresent within, or connected to, the platform 600, and includes one ormore user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with theplatform 600 and/or peripheral component interfaces designed to enableperipheral component interaction with the platform 600. The userinterface circuitry 650 includes input device circuitry and outputdevice circuitry. Input device circuitry includes any physical orvirtual means for accepting an input including, inter alia, one or morephysical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard,keypad, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, microphones, scanner, headset,and/or the like. The output device circuitry includes any physical orvirtual means for showing information or otherwise conveyinginformation, such as sensor readings, actuator position(s), or otherlike information. Output device circuitry may include any number and/orcombinations of audio or visual display, including, inter alia, one ormore simple visual outputs/indicators (e.g., binary status indicators(e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)) and multi-character visual outputs,or more complex outputs such as display devices or touchscreens (e.g.,Liquid Chrystal Displays (LCD), LED displays, quantum dot displays,projectors, etc.), with the output of characters, graphics, multimediaobjects, and the like being generated or produced from the operation ofthe platform 600. The output device circuitry may also include speakersor other audio emitting devices, printer(s), and/or the like. In someembodiments, the sensor circuitry 621 may be used as the input devicecircuitry (e.g., an image capture device, motion capture device, or thelike) and one or more EMCs may be used as the output device circuitry(e.g., an actuator to provide haptic feedback or the like). In anotherexample, NFC circuitry comprising an NFC controller coupled with anantenna element and a processing device may be included to readelectronic tags and/or connect with another NFC-enabled device.Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, anon-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, a power supplyinterface, etc.

Although not shown, the components of platform 600 may communicate withone another using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, whichmay include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx,PCIe, a Time-Trigger Protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or anynumber of other technologies. The bus/IX may be a proprietary bus/IX,for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus/IX systems may beincluded, such as an I²C interface, an SPI interface, point-to-pointinterfaces, and a power bus, among others.

FIG. 7 illustrates example components of baseband circuitry 710 andradio front end modules (RFEM) 715 in accordance with variousembodiments. The baseband circuitry 710 corresponds to the basebandcircuitry 510 and 610 of FIGS. 5 and 6, respectively. The RFEM 715corresponds to the RFEM 515 and 615 of FIGS. 5 and 6, respectively. Asshown, the RFEMs 715 may include Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 706,front-end module (FEM) circuitry 708, antenna array 711 coupled togetherat least as shown.

The baseband circuitry 710 includes circuitry and/or control logicconfigured to carry out various radio/network protocol and radio controlfunctions that enable communication with one or more radio networks viathe RF circuitry 706. The radio control functions may include, but arenot limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radiofrequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulationcircuitry of the baseband circuitry 710 may include Fast-FourierTransform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demappingfunctionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of thebaseband circuitry 710 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution,turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoderfunctionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation andencoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and mayinclude other suitable functionality in other embodiments. The basebandcircuitry 710 is configured to process baseband signals received from areceive signal path of the RF circuitry 706 and to generate basebandsignals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 706. The basebandcircuitry 710 is configured to interface with application circuitry505/605 (see FIGS. 5 and 6) for generation and processing of thebaseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 706.The baseband circuitry 710 may handle various radio control functions.

The aforementioned circuitry and/or control logic of the basebandcircuitry 710 may include one or more single or multi-core processors.For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G basebandprocessor 704A, a 4G/LTE baseband processor 704B, a 5G/NR basebandprocessor 704C, or some other baseband processor(s) 704D for otherexisting generations, generations in development or to be developed inthe future (e.g., sixth generation (6G), etc.). In other embodiments,some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 704A-D may beincluded in modules stored in the memory 704G and executed via a CentralProcessing Unit (CPU) 704E. In other embodiments, some or all of thefunctionality of baseband processors 704A-D may be provided as hardwareaccelerators (e.g., FPGAs, ASICs, etc.) loaded with the appropriate bitstreams or logic blocks stored in respective memory cells. In variousembodiments, the memory 704G may store program code of a real-time OS(RTOS), which when executed by the CPU 704E (or other basebandprocessor), is to cause the CPU 704E (or other baseband processor) tomanage resources of the baseband circuitry 710, schedule tasks, etc.Examples of the RTOS may include Operating System Embedded (OSE)™provided by Enea®, Nucleus RTOS™ provided by Mentor Graphics®, VersatileReal-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Mentor Graphics®, ThreadX™provided by Express Logic®, FreeRTOS, REX OS provided by Qualcomm®, OKL4provided by Open Kernel (OK) Labs®, or any other suitable RTOS, such asthose discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuitry 710 includesone or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 704F. The audioDSP(s) 704F include elements for compression/decompression and echocancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in otherembodiments.

In some embodiments, each of the processors 704A-704E include respectivememory interfaces to send/receive data to/from the memory 704G. Thebaseband circuitry 710 may further include one or more interfaces tocommunicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as aninterface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the basebandcircuitry 710; an application circuitry interface to send/receive datato/from the application circuitry 505/605 of FIG. 5-XT); an RF circuitryinterface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry 706 of FIG. 7; awireless hardware connectivity interface to send/receive data to/fromone or more wireless hardware elements (e.g., Near Field Communication(NFC) components, Bluetooth®/Bluetooth® Low Energy components, Wi-Fi®components, and/or the like); and a power management interface tosend/receive power or control signals to/from the PMIC 625.

In alternate embodiments (which may be combined with the above describedembodiments), baseband circuitry 710 comprises one or more digitalbaseband systems, which are coupled with one another via an interconnectsubsystem and to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, and an interfacesubsystem. The digital baseband subsystems may also be coupled to adigital baseband interface and a mixed-signal baseband subsystem viaanother interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnect subsystems mayinclude a bus system, point-to-point connections, network-on-chip (NOC)structures, and/or some other suitable bus or interconnect technology,such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include DSPcircuitry, buffer memory, program memory, speech processing acceleratorcircuitry, data converter circuitry such as analog-to-digital anddigital-to-analog converter circuitry, analog circuitry including one ormore of amplifiers and filters, and/or other like components. In anaspect of the present disclosure, baseband circuitry 710 may includeprotocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of controlcircuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digitalbaseband circuitry and/or radio frequency circuitry (e.g., the radiofront end modules 715).

Although not shown by FIG. 7, in some embodiments, the basebandcircuitry 710 includes individual processing device(s) to operate one ormore wireless communication protocols (e.g., a “multi-protocol basebandprocessor” or “protocol processing circuitry”) and individual processingdevice(s) to implement PHY layer functions. In these embodiments, thePHY layer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions.In these embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry operates orimplements various protocol layers/entities of one or more wirelesscommunication protocols. In a first example, the protocol processingcircuitry may operate LTE protocol entities and/or 5G/NR protocolentities when the baseband circuitry 710 and/or RF circuitry 706 arepart of mmWave communication circuitry or some other suitable cellularcommunication circuitry. In the first example, the protocol processingcircuitry would operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. Ina second example, the protocol processing circuitry may operate one ormore IEEE-based protocols when the baseband circuitry 710 and/or RFcircuitry 706 are part of a Wi-Fi communication system. In the secondexample, the protocol processing circuitry would operate Wi-Fi MAC andlogical link control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitrymay include one or more memory structures (e.g., 704G) to store programcode and data for operating the protocol functions, as well as one ormore processing cores to execute the program code and perform variousoperations using the data. The baseband circuitry 710 may also supportradio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

The various hardware elements of the baseband circuitry 710 discussedherein may be implemented, for example, as a solder-down substrateincluding one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged ICsoldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing twoor more ICs. In one example, the components of the baseband circuitry710 may be suitably combined in a single chip or chipset, or disposed ona same circuit board. In another example, some or all of the constituentcomponents of the baseband circuitry 710 and RF circuitry 706 may beimplemented together such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) orSystem-in-Package (SiP). In another example, some or all of theconstituent components of the baseband circuitry 710 may be implementedas a separate SoC that is communicatively coupled with and RF circuitry706 (or multiple instances of RF circuitry 706). In yet another example,some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 710and the application circuitry 505/605 may be implemented together asindividual SoCs mounted to a same circuit board (e.g., a “multi-chippackage”).

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 710 may provide forcommunication compatible with one or more radio technologies. Forexample, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 710 may supportcommunication with an E-UTRAN or other WMAN, a WLAN, a WPAN. Embodimentsin which the baseband circuitry 710 is configured to support radiocommunications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to asmulti-mode baseband circuitry.

RF circuitry 706 may enable communication with wireless networks usingmodulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. Invarious embodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include switches, filters,amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wirelessnetwork. RF circuitry 706 may include a receive signal path, which mayinclude circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEMcircuitry 708 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry710. RF circuitry 706 may also include a transmit signal path, which mayinclude circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by thebaseband circuitry 710 and provide RF output signals to the FEMcircuitry 708 for transmission.

In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 706 mayinclude mixer circuitry 706 a, amplifier circuitry 706 b and filtercircuitry 706 c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RFcircuitry 706 may include filter circuitry 706 c and mixer circuitry 706a. RF circuitry 706 may also include synthesizer circuitry 706 d forsynthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 706 a of thereceive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments,the mixer circuitry 706 a of the receive signal path may be configuredto down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 708 based onthe synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 706 d. Theamplifier circuitry 706 b may be configured to amplify thedown-converted signals and the filter circuitry 706 c may be a low-passfilter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwantedsignals from the down-converted signals to generate output basebandsignals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the basebandcircuitry 710 for further processing. In some embodiments, the outputbaseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although thisis not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 706 a of thereceive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope ofthe embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706 a of the transmit signalpath may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on thesynthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 706 d togenerate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 708. The basebandsignals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 710 and may befiltered by filter circuitry 706 c.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706 a of the receive signalpath and the mixer circuitry 706 a of the transmit signal path mayinclude two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadraturedownconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, themixer circuitry 706 a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry706 a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and maybe arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In someembodiments, the mixer circuitry 706 a of the receive signal path andthe mixer circuitry 706 a of the transmit signal path may be arrangedfor direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In someembodiments, the mixer circuitry 706 a of the receive signal path andthe mixer circuitry 706 a of the transmit signal path may be configuredfor super-heterodyne operation.

In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input basebandsignals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of theembodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternateembodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signalsmay be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RFcircuitry 706 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) anddigital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry710 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RFcircuitry 706.

In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may beprovided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope ofthe embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 706 d may be afractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer, although thescope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other typesof frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizercircuitry 706 d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequencymultiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with afrequency divider.

The synthesizer circuitry 706 d may be configured to synthesize anoutput frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 706 a of the RFcircuitry 706 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. Insome embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 706 d may be a fractionalN/N+1 synthesizer.

In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltagecontrolled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Dividercontrol input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 710 orthe application circuitry 505/605 depending on the desired outputfrequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may bedetermined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by theapplication circuitry 505/605.

Synthesizer circuitry 706 d of the RF circuitry 706 may include adivider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phaseaccumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulusdivider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phaseaccumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured todivide the input signal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry out)to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, theDLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phasedetector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments,the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Ndequal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in thedelay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to helpensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 706 d may be configured togenerate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in otherembodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrierfrequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrierfrequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and dividercircuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency withmultiple different phases with respect to each other. In someembodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In someembodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include an IQ/polar converter.

FEM circuitry 708 may include a receive signal path, which may includecircuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antennaarray 711, amplify the received signals and provide the amplifiedversions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 706 for furtherprocessing. FEM circuitry 708 may also include a transmit signal path,which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals fortransmission provided by the RF circuitry 706 for transmission by one ormore of antenna elements of antenna array 711. In various embodiments,the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may bedone solely in the RF circuitry 706, solely in the FEM circuitry 708, orin both the RF circuitry 706 and the FEM circuitry 708.

In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 708 may include a TX/RX switch toswitch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEMcircuitry 708 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signalpath. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 708 may include anLNA to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RFsignals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 706). The transmitsignal path of the FEM circuitry 708 may include a power amplifier (PA)to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 706), andone or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmissionby one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 711.

The antenna array 711 comprises one or more antenna elements, each ofwhich is configured convert electrical signals into radio waves totravel through the air and to convert received radio waves intoelectrical signals. For example, digital baseband signals provided bythe baseband circuitry 710 is converted into analog RF signals (e.g.,modulated waveform) that will be amplified and transmitted via theantenna elements of the antenna array 711 including one or more antennaelements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional,direction, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may be formedin a multitude of arranges as are known and/or discussed herein. Theantenna array 711 may comprise microstrip antennas or printed antennasthat are fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuitboards. The antenna array 711 may be formed in as a patch of metal foil(e.g., a patch antenna) in a variety of shapes, and may be coupled withthe RF circuitry 706 and/or FEM circuitry 708 using metal transmissionlines or the like.

Processors of the application circuitry 505/605 and processors of thebaseband circuitry 710 may be used to execute elements of one or moreinstances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the basebandcircuitry 710, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3,Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the applicationcircuitry 505/605 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received fromthese layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., TCP andUDP layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a RRC layer,described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 2 maycomprise a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, described infurther detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a PHYlayer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to someexample embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readableor computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readablestorage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein. Specifically, FIG. 8 shows a diagrammaticrepresentation of hardware resources 800 including one or moreprocessors (or processor cores) 810, one or more memory/storage devices820, and one or more communication resources 830, each of which may becommunicatively coupled via a bus 840. For embodiments where nodevirtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 802 may be executedto provide an execution environment for one or more networkslices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 800.

The processors 810 may include, for example, a processor 812 and aprocessor 814. The processor(s) 810 may be, for example, a centralprocessing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC)processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, agraphics processing unit (GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, anASIC, an FPGA, a radiofrequency integrated circuit (RFIC), anotherprocessor (including those discussed herein), or any suitablecombination thereof.

The memory/storage devices 820 may include main memory, disk storage, orany suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 820 mayinclude, but are not limited to, any type of volatile or nonvolatilememory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random accessmemory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flashmemory, solid-state storage, etc.

The communication resources 830 may include interconnection or networkinterface components or other suitable devices to communicate with oneor more peripheral devices 804 or one or more databases 806 via anetwork 808. For example, the communication resources 830 may includewired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB), cellularcommunication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® LowEnergy) components, Wi-Fi® components, and other communicationcomponents.

Instructions 850 may comprise software, a program, an application, anapplet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of theprocessors 810 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussedherein. The instructions 850 may reside, completely or partially, withinat least one of the processors 810 (e.g., within the processor's cachememory), the memory/storage devices 820, or any suitable combinationthereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 850 may betransferred to the hardware resources 800 from any combination of theperipheral devices 804 or the databases 806. Accordingly, the memory ofprocessors 810, the memory/storage devices 820, the peripheral devices804, and the databases 806 are examples of computer-readable andmachine-readable media.

The process 300 may include, at 302, receiving, from an access node,configuration information to configure one or more thresholds, the oneor more thresholds to include a power-related threshold or a duty-cyclerelated threshold. At 304, the process 300 may further include detectinga beam failure event in an uplink based on the one or more thresholds.In some embodiments, the process 300 may be performed by a UE or aportion thereof (e.g., baseband circuitry of the UE).

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components set forth inone or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one ormore operations, techniques, processes, and/or methods as set forth inthe example section below. For example, the baseband circuitry asdescribed above in connection with one or more of the preceding figuresmay be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of theexamples set forth below. For another example, circuitry associated witha UE, base station, network element, etc. as described above inconnection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configuredto operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forthbelow in the example section.

EXAMPLES

Example 1 may include a method of uplink beam failure recovery, whereinthe method includes: configuring one or more the beam failure referencesignals; configuring one or more beam failure detection thresholds,candidate beam reference signals, or new beam detection threshold;evaluating, by a UE, beam failure event for uplink based onconfiguration and measurements of reference signals; or detecting a beamfailure, by a UE, and indicating a new uplink beam to gNB from candidateset.

Example 2 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein beam failure reference signals are SS/PBCH blocks.

Example 3 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein beam failure reference signals are CSI-RS.

Example 4 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein beam failure reference signals are downlink referencesignals configured in spatial relation info of uplink control channel(PUCCH).

Example 5 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein beam failure threshold is hypothetical BLER of PUCCH.

Example 6 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein beam failure threshold is hypothetical uplink RSRP.

Example 7 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein the UE measurements for beam failure detection is atleast one of BLER or uplink RSRP

Example 8 may include the method of examples 2, 3, 7, or some otherexample herein, wherein the measurements for beam failure detection foruplink derived based on Tx power information of gNB, uplink P-MPR (Txpower back) of the UE for the corresponding beam.

Example 9 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein reference signals for candidate beams are SS/PBCH.

Example 10 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein reference signals for candidate beams are CSI-RS,SS/PBCH.

Example 11 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein new beam is indicated form candidate set referencesignal which quality better than threshold.

Example 12 may include the method of examples 9-11 or some other exampleherein, wherein threshold is at least one of BLER of PUCCH and UL RSRP.

Example 13 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein new beam is reported by using MAC CE.

Example 14 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein new beam is indicated by using PRACH transmission, wherethe new beam can be associated with PRACH sequence and PRACH occasion.

Example 15 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, wherein new beam is reported by using index beam report.

Example 16 may include a method of a user equipment (UE), the methodcomprising: receiving, from an access node, configuration information toconfigure one or more thresholds, the one or more thresholds to includea power-related threshold or a duty-cycle related threshold; anddetecting a beam failure event in an uplink based on the one or morethresholds.

Example 17 may include the method of example 16 or some other exampleherein, wherein performance of the detection is based on user proximitydetection.

Example 18 may include the method of example 16-17 or some other exampleherein, further comprising performing one or more measurements on one ormore beam failure reference signals, wherein the detection is furtherbased on the one or more measurements.

Example 19 may include the method of example 18 or some other exampleherein, wherein the one or more beam failure reference signals include asynchronization signal block (SSB).

Example 20 may include the method of example 18 or some other exampleherein, wherein the one or more beam failure reference signals include achannel state information (CSI)-reference signal (RS).

Example 21 may include the method of example 18 or some other exampleherein, wherein the one or more beam failure reference signals includeone or more downlink reference signals configured in spatial relationinformation of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).

Example 22 may include the method of example 18-21 or some other exampleherein, wherein the one or more measurements include at least one of aBLER measurement or an uplink RSRP measurement.

Example 23 may include the method of example 18-22 or some other exampleherein, wherein the one or more measurements are derived based on one ormore of transmission power information of an access node, or uplinkpower management maximum power reduction (P-MPR) of the UE for acorresponding beam.

Example 24 may include the method of example 16-23 or some other exampleherein, wherein the one or more thresholds include a hypothetical blockerror rate (BER) of a PUCCH.

Example 25 may include the method of example 16-24 or some other exampleherein, wherein the one or more thresholds include a hypothetical uplinkreceived signal received power (RSRP).

Example 26 may include the method of example 16-25 or some other exampleherein, wherein the detection is a proactive detection.

Example 27 may include the method of example 16-26 or some other exampleherein, further comprising: identifying a new beam for the uplink basedon power management maximum power reduction (P-MPR); and providing, toan access node, an indication of the new beam.

Example 28 may include the method of example 27 or some other exampleherein, wherein the new beam includes a spatial filter.

Example 29 may include the method of example 27-28 or some other exampleherein, further comprising performing measurements on candidate beams,wherein the new beam is identified from the candidate beams based on themeasurements.

Example 30 may include the method of example 29 or some other exampleherein, wherein the measurements are performed on an SSB and/or aCSI-RS.

Example 31 may include the method of example 27-30 or some other exampleherein, wherein the new beam is identified based on a quality threshold.

Example 32 may include the method of examples 31 or some other exampleherein, wherein quality threshold includes at least one of BLER of PUCCHor UL RSRP.

Example 33 may include the method of example 27-32 or some other exampleherein, wherein the indication of the new beam is included in a MAC CE.

Example 34 may include the method of example 27-32 or some other exampleherein, wherein the new beam is indicated using a PRACH transmission.

Example 35 may include the method of example 34 or some other exampleherein, wherein the new beam is indicated based on an association with aPRACH sequence and/or a PRACH occasion of the PRACH transmission.

Example 36 may include the method of example 27-35 or some other exampleherein, wherein the new beam is indicated by an index beam report.

Example 37 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one ormore elements of a method described in or related to any of examples1-36, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 38 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readablemedia comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, uponexecution of the instructions by one or more processors of theelectronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method describedin or related to any of examples 1-36, or any other method or processdescribed herein.

Example 39 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, orcircuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in orrelated to any of examples 1-36, or any other method or processdescribed herein.

Example 40 may include a method, technique, or process as described inor related to any of examples 1-36, or portions or parts thereof.

Example 41 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processorsand one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that,when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or moreprocessors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described inor related to any of examples 1-36, or portions thereof.

Example 42 may include a signal as described in or related to any ofexamples 1-36, or portions or parts thereof.

Example 43 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol dataunit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples1-36, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in thepresent disclosure.

Example 44 may include a signal encoded with data as described in orrelated to any of examples 1-36, or portions or parts thereof, orotherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example 45 may include a signal encoded with a datagram, packet, frame,segment, protocol data unit (PDU), or message as described in or relatedto any of examples 1-36, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwisedescribed in the present disclosure.

Example 46 may include an electromagnetic signal carryingcomputer-readable instructions, wherein execution of thecomputer-readable instructions by one or more processors is to cause theone or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process asdescribed in or related to any of examples 1-36, or portions thereof.

Example 47 may include a computer program comprising instructions,wherein execution of the program by a processing element is to cause theprocessing element to carry out the method, techniques, or process asdescribed in or related to any of examples 1-36, or portions thereof.

Example 48 may include a signal in a wireless network as shown anddescribed herein.

Example 49 may include a method of communicating in a wireless networkas shown and described herein.

Example 50 may include a system for providing wireless communication asshown and described herein.

Example 51 may include a device for providing wireless communication asshown and described herein.

Any of the above-described examples may be combined with any otherexample (or combination of examples), unless explicitly statedotherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementationsprovides illustration and description, but is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the scope of embodiments to the precise formdisclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of theabove teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Terminology

For the purposes of the present document, the following terms anddefinitions are applicable to the examples and embodiments discussedherein.

The term “circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includeshardware components such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, aprocessor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared,dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC),a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gate array(FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), ahigh-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC),digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., that are configured to providethe described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry mayexecute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at leastsome of the described functionality. The term “circuitry” may also referto a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination ofcircuits used in an electrical or electronic system) with the programcode used to carry out the functionality of that program code. In theseembodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code maybe referred to as a particular type of circuitry.

The term “processor circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, orincludes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically carryingout a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording,storing, and/or transferring digital data. The term “processorcircuitry” may refer to one or more application processors, one or morebaseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), asingle-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, aquad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing orotherwise operating computer-executable instructions, such as programcode, software modules, and/or functional processes. The terms“application circuitry” and/or “baseband circuitry” may be consideredsynonymous to, and may be referred to as, “processor circuitry.”

The term “interface circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, orincludes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between twoor more components or devices. The term “interface circuitry” may referto one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, I/O interfaces,peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or thelike.

The term “user equipment” or “UE” as used herein refers to a device withradio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user ofnetwork resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment”or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as,client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobileunit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station,access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurableradio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, theterm “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wireddevice or any computing device including a wireless communicationsinterface.

The term “network element” as used herein refers to physical orvirtualized equipment and/or infrastructure used to provide wired orwireless communication network services. The term “network element” maybe considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer,networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch,hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway,server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, and/or the like.

The term “computer system” as used herein refers to any typeinterconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or componentsthereof. Additionally, the term “computer system” and/or “system” mayrefer to various components of a computer that are communicativelycoupled with one another. Furthermore, the term “computer system” and/or“system” may refer to multiple computer devices and/or multiplecomputing systems that are communicatively coupled with one another andconfigured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The term “appliance,” “computer appliance,” or the like, as used hereinrefers to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g.,software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide aspecific computing resource. A “virtual appliance” is a virtual machineimage to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizesor emulates a computer appliance or otherwise is dedicated to provide aspecific computing resource.

The term “resource” as used herein refers to a physical or virtualdevice, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment,and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, suchas computer devices, mechanical devices, memory space, processor/CPUtime, processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator loads, hardwaretime or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports ornetwork sockets, channel/link allocation, throughput, memory usage,storage, network, database and applications, workload units, and/or thelike. A “hardware resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/ornetwork resources provided by physical hardware element(s). A“virtualized resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or networkresources provided by virtualization infrastructure to an application,device, system, etc. The term “network resource” or “communicationresource” may refer to resources that are accessible by computerdevices/systems via a communications network. The term “systemresources” may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services,and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources maybe considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects orservices, accessible through a server where such system resources resideon a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term “channel” as used herein refers to any transmission medium,either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or adata stream. The term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalentto “communications channel,” “data communications channel,”“transmission channel,” “data transmission channel,” “access channel,”“data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radiofrequencycarrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or mediumthrough which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” asused herein refers to a connection between two devices through a RAT forthe purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

The terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like as used hereinrefers to the creation of an instance. An “instance” also refers to aconcrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, duringexecution of program code.

The terms “coupled,” “communicatively coupled,” along with derivativesthereof are used herein. The term “coupled” may mean two or moreelements are in direct physical or electrical contact with one another,may mean that two or more elements indirectly contact each other butstill cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one ormore other elements are coupled or connected between the elements thatare said to be coupled with each other. The term “directly coupled” maymean that two or more elements are in direct contact with one another.The term “communicatively coupled” may mean that two or more elementsmay be in contact with one another by a means of communication includingthrough a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wirelesscommunication channel or ink, and/or the like.

The term “information element” refers to a structural element containingone or more fields. The term “field” refers to individual contents of aninformation element, or a data element that contains content.

The term “SMTC” refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configurationconfigured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

The term “SSB” refers to an synchronization signal (SS)/physicalbroadcast channel (PBCH) block.

The term “Primary Cell” refers to the MCG cell, operating on the primaryfrequency, in which the UE either performs the initial connectionestablishment procedure or initiates the connection re-establishmentprocedure.

The term “Primary SCG Cell” refers to the SCG cell in which the UEperforms random access when performing the Reconfiguration with Syncprocedure for DC operation.

The term “Secondary Cell” refers to a cell providing additional radioresources on top of a Special Cell for a UE configured with CA.

The term “Secondary Cell Group” refers to the subset of serving cellscomprising the PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UEconfigured with DC.

The term “Serving Cell” refers to the primary cell for a UE inRRC_CONNECTED not configured with CA/DC there is only one serving cellcomprising of the primary cell.

The term “serving cell” or “serving cells” refers to the set of cellscomprising the Special Cell(s) and all secondary cells for a UE inRRC_CONNECTED configured with CA/.

The term “Special Cell” refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell ofthe SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term “Special Cell” refers tothe Pcell.

1. One or more non-transitory, computer-readable media (NTCRM) havinginstructions, stored thereon, that when executed cause a user equipment(UE) to: receive, from an access node, configuration information toconfigure one or more thresholds, the one or more thresholds to includea power-related threshold or a duty-cycle related threshold; and detecta beam failure event in an uplink based on the one or more thresholds.2. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein performance of thedetection is based on user proximity detection.
 3. The one or more NTCRMof claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further tocause the UE to perform one or more measurements on one or more beamfailure reference signals, wherein the detection is further based on theone or more measurements.
 4. The one or more NTCRM of claim 3, whereinthe one or more beam failure reference signals include a synchronizationsignal block (SSB).
 5. The one or more NTCRM of claim 3, wherein the oneor more beam failure reference signals include a channel stateinformation (CSI)-reference signal (RS).
 6. The one or more NTCRM ofclaim 3, wherein the one or more beam failure reference signals includeone or more downlink reference signals configured in spatial relationinformation of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).
 7. The one ormore NTCRM of claim 3, wherein the one or more measurements include atleast one of a block error rate (BLER) measurement or an uplink receivedsignal received power (RSRP) measurement.
 8. The one or more NTCRM ofclaim 3, wherein the one or more measurements are derived based on oneor more of transmission power information of an access node, or uplinkpower management maximum power reduction (P-MPR) of the UE for acorresponding beam.
 9. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein the oneor more thresholds include a hypothetical block error rate (BER) of aPUCCH.
 10. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein the one or morethresholds include a hypothetical uplink received signal received power(RSRP).
 11. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein the detection is aproactive detection.
 12. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein theinstructions, when executed, further cause the UE to: identify a newbeam for the uplink based on power management maximum power reduction(P-MPR); and provide, to the access node or another access node, anindication of the new beam.
 13. The one or more NTCRM of claim 12,wherein the new beam includes a spatial filter.
 14. The one or moreNTCRM of claim 12, wherein the instructions, when executed, furthercause the UE to perform measurements on candidate beams, wherein the newbeam is identified from the candidate beams based on the measurements.15. The one or more NTCRM of claim 14, wherein the measurements areperformed on an SSB and/or a CSI-RS.
 16. The one or more NTCRM of claim14, wherein the new beam is identified based on a comparison of themeasurements to a quality threshold.
 17. The one or more NTCRM of claim16, wherein quality threshold includes at least one of BLER of PUCCH orUL RSRP.
 18. The one or more NTCRM of claim 12, wherein the indicationof the new beam is included in a MAC CE or an index beam report.
 19. Theone or more NTCRM of claim 12, wherein the new beam is indicated using aPRACH transmission.
 20. The one or more NTCRM of claim 19, wherein thenew beam is indicated based on an association with a PRACH sequenceand/or a PRACH occasion of the PRACH transmission.